Veteran parks writer Robert Earle Howells is the authority on finding real adventure in the National Park System. Here he names the 20 best hikes in the parks, from unforgettable day trips to challenging backpacking escapes.
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Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Photograph by Raymond Gehman, National Geographic
Teton Crest Trail
When to Go: Mid-July to Mid-September
One Way: 37 Miles, 6 Days
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip
The signature hike of Grand Teton National Park threads its way along the interior spine of the Teton Range, joining high divides and passes, alpine lakes, and intimate looks at those iconic craggy summits. The brief hiking season coincides with a supernova burst of color—carpets of lupine, streams choked with mountain bluebells. At Fox Creek Pass you get sweeping views of Jackson Hole in Wyoming and Teton Valley in Idaho. And starting in Hurricane Pass, every view for several miles frames the three Tetons in all their glory.
Insider Tip: Leave a car at trail’s end—the Leigh Lake trailhead—then ride the Teton Village tram to start the hike on the Granite Canyon Trail.
America's Best Adventures: Climb the Grand Teton
Ultimate Adventure Bucket List: Climb the Tetons' Cathedral Traverse
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Big Bend National Park, Texas
Photograph by Christian Heeb, laif/Redux
Outer Mountain Loop
When to Go: October to May
Round-Trip: 30 Miles, 3 Days
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip
Big Bend is all about a sense of vastness: Hundred-mile views sweep across the hills, arroyos, and mesas of the Chihuahuan Desert with nary a sign of civilization. No place delivers a sense of the park’s enormity—and solitude—better than the high country of the Chisos Mountains. This three-day, two-night hike climbs into and traverses the south rim of the range, where you can stand in the shade of big maples, cypress, oaks, and ponderosa pines and view the austere beauty of the desert far below.
Insider Tip: Cache water in advance at Blue Creek Canyon so you only have to carry two days’ worth of liquid.
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Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Photograph by Syd Dasna, My Shot
Queens Garden/Navajo Loop Combination Trail
When to Go: Year-round
Round-Trip: 3 Miles
Level: Moderate Day Hike
This hike joins parts of two loop to descend the canyon and ogle the weirdest of weird Bryce geology—warrens of fantastic rococo hoodoos that shimmer in dozens of shades of red in early-morning light. The sandstone spires tower as you make your way back up through the Wall Street section of the Navajo Loop Trail and view the park’s postcard-icon formation, the top-heavy Thor’s Hammer.
Insider Tip: If the moon is full or nearly so, do the hike at night. No moon? Join stargazers at the visitors center for a tour of the stunningly clear night sky; telescopes are provided.
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Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
Photograph by Corey Rich, Aurora
Climb Longs Peak
When to Go: July to September
Round-Trip: 16 Miles
Level: Challenging Peak Ascent
At 14,259 feet, Longs Peak is the crown of Rocky Mountain National Park and a coveted trophy for mountaineers who take on its hugely exposed big-wall ramparts. The rest of us can hike up, which means tackling an eight-mile approach called the Keyhole Route that gains 4,850 feet. It requires stamina, boulder scrambling, and route finding. Stay on target and you’ll come out on top of the world.
Insider Tip: Set your alarm. You need to set out by 3 a.m. to get off the summit by 10 a.m., before the frequent afternoon thunderstorms.
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Acadia National Park, Maine
Photograph by Jeff Foott, Getty Images
Sargent Mountain Loop
When to Go: May to October
Round-Trip: 5.5 Miles
Level: Moderate Day Hike
One of the charms of Acadia is the way subtle human “improvements” work with the park’s thick spruce-fir forests, rugged mountains, and steep cliffs to make it all accessible—and just a bit thrilling. Such is the case with this undesignated trail loop that rises from the park’s most civilized venue, Jordan Pond House (elevation 200 feet), to the wild summit of Sargent Mountain (1,373 feet). En route you skirt Jordan Cliffs and East Cliffs by way of constructed steps and fortuitously placed iron rungs, making the hike possible, though far from easy. The reward is a three-coastline view of Mount Desert Island and an inland vista that extends to distant Baxter Peak and Katahdin.
Insider Tip: Cool off with a brisk plunge into Sargent Pond on your way down from the mountain.
Acadia National Park Guide
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Yosemite National Park, California
Photograph by Michael Maloney, San Francisco Chronicle/Corbis
Half Dome Hike
When to Go: April to October
Round-Trip: 17.2 Miles
Level: Challenging Day Hike
This is the hike you’ll talk about as all the others fade into pleasant memories. Not only do you climb 4,800 feet out of Yosemite Valley and past Vernal and Nevada Falls, but the last 900 feet are right up the granite face of fabled Half Dome. Luckily, you get a hand from well-placed steel cables on your way top of the dome. It’s a heart-thumping, insanely wonderful feeling to be hanging in space until you top out—and then the view takes over.
Insider Tip: Break it up by staying the night in Little Yosemite Valley campground, about halfway to Half Dome. This gives you a huge head start on the legions of hikers who do the dome every day.
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Glacier National Park, Montana
Photograph by M. Scott Brauer, Alamy
Grinnell Glacier Trail
When to Go: June to September
Round-Trip: 11 Miles
Level: Moderate Day Hike
View many of Glacier’s most iconic features—big, clear, glacial valley lakes, alpine meadows filled with wildflowers; the omnipresent possibility of seeing a grizzly—en route to a glorious view from the maw of Grinnell, one of the park’s signature glaciers. The trail skirts Swiftcurrent and Josephine Lakes (opt for a tour boat if you want to knock 3.8 miles off the hike) before ascending 1,600 feet to the narrow, fissured glacier hanging high above milky blue Grinnell Lake.
Insider Tip: Push on past the glacier’s outflow for a jaw-dropping view of Grinnell Lake and a host of alpine summits. The incredible vistas are worth the 1,200-foot climb, first to the saddle between Mount Gould and Angel Wing, and then up to the ridge just below the summit of Angel Wing.
America's Best Adventures: Backpack Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park Photos
Your National Park Photos
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Zion National Park, Utah
Photograph by Ethan Welty, Aurora Creative/Getty Images
Angels Landing
When: March to October
Round-Trip: 5.5 Miles
Level: Challenging Day Hike
See the Trail Map
Zion’s red-rock walls and sandstone canyons are stunning from any perspective, but none is more rewarding than the one from the top of the sandstone fin known as Angels Landing. Your sweat equity figures into that reward. The first couple of miles gently skirt the Virgin River on the West Rim Trail and pass through Refrigerator Canyon. Then the heart thumping commences—up the 21 switchbacks called Walter’s Wiggles and up an exposed rock spine that requires the aid of built-in chains. Suddenly it’s all at your feet—360 degrees of canyon walls, piñon-juniper forests, the Virgin River, and distant, craggy peaks.
Insider Tip: Get out early for the best light on the rocks and to minimize company on the narrow trail.
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Olympic National Park, Washington
Photograph by Michael Hanson, Aurora Photos
Hike and Climb Mount Olympus
When to Go: July and August
Round-Trip: 40 Miles, 2 Days
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip; Challenging Peak Ascent
From the long approach through the old-growth Hoh rain forest to the top-of-the-world alpine summit, this is every inch a majestic climb. The two-day approach is gentle hiking beneath towering cedars and Sitka spruce. Summit day, though, entails 3,700 feet of climbing and a traverse of Blue Glacier (ice ax, crampons, rope, and crevasse rescue gear required)—true alpine mountaineering, but without extreme elevation. The summit stands 7,980 feet high and delivers a view that extends from Mount Rainier to Vancouver Island.
Insider Tip: If you lack alpine mountaineering experience, go with a guiding service such as Mountain Madness (www.mountainmadness.com).
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Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
Photograph by Tom Dempsey
Wonderland Trail
When to Go: Late July to Mid-September
Round-Trip: 93-Mile Loop
Level: Challenging Backpacking Trip to Complete the Loop; Moderate Backpacking Trip For Sections
A ten-day (minimum) circumnavigation of massive Mount Rainier is one of the true epic hikes in the National Park System. Wonderland Trail makes it possible, with all the wonders of the mighty mountain on vivid display—glaciers and scree fields, high alpine country with brilliant (some endemic) wildflowers, roaring rivers, and, of course, great looks at the mighty summit. Eighteen trail camps simplify logistics a bit, but total elevation gain (and loss) is still more than 20,000 feet as the trail undulates over countless Rainier ridges.
Insider Tip: Wonderland can be accessed from any of nine trailheads, so it’s possible to break up the trail into less-than-epic distances, or to do it over the course of several seasons.
Mount Rainier National Park Guide
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Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona
Photograph by Marc Muench, Alamy
Nankoweap Trail
When to Go: September to May
Round-Trip: 28 Miles, 3 to 4 Days
Level: Challenging Backpacking Trip
Of all the Grand Canyon rim-to-river routes, the Nankoweap is the most challenging and the most rewarding. In the course of 14 miles from the North Rim trailhead on the Kaibab Plateau, the trail plummets 6,000 feet. Allow one to two days to hike down, two to hike out. All the glories of the canyon are on view—buttes and hoodoos, cliffs of sandstone and redwall limestone. But the real reward is a solitary camp beside the Colorado River near the echoing roar of Nankoweap Rapids and a chance to explore ancient granaries of the Ancestral Puebloan people.
Insider Tip: On the way out, lay over at Nankoweap Creek, and be sure to top off your water bottles—the final 14 miles are bone dry.
World's Best Hikes: Grand Canyon, Rim to Rim to Rim
America's Best Adventures: Row Down the Grand Canyon
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Lake Clark National Park, Alaska
Photograph by Corey Rich, Aurora Creative/Getty Images
Telaquana Lake to Twin Lakes
When to Go: June to September
Round-Trip: 25 miles
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip
You have to be willing to go native to do this classically Alaskan hike—in and out by floatplane, and not a trail in sight. That said, the going is fairly easy (just head south) across a huge landscape of contoured high tundra, and the rewards are immense. You’ll see caribou, moose, Dall sheep, and possibly brown bears as you hike beneath towering mountains and hanging glaciers perched above the east end of Turquoise Lake. Allow six or seven days and some time to check out the handcrafted cabin built by locally fabled naturalist/mountain man Dick Proenneke on Upper Twin Lake at the end of your hike.
Insider Tip: Lake Clark Air (www.lakeclarkrair.com) can set up your floatplane taxis, or go with Alaska Alpine Adventures—they guide the route and arrange the floatplanes (www.alaskaalpineadventures.com).
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Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee
Photograph by Jon Massie, Alamy
Climb Mount LeConte
When to Go: March to October
Round-Trip: 10.4 Miles
Level: Moderate Peak Ascent
See the Trail Map
Sixers—mountains higher than 6,000 feet—have magical appeal in the Appalachians because they come with bragging rights (tallest in the East) as well as a cool series of habitat transitions and the region’s most stellar views. A trudge up Mount LeConte (6,593 feet) takes you through hardwood forests to spruce and balsam and on to exposed cliffs that require steel-cable assistance. You’ll also pass through Alum Cave, more of an overhang, which was once a source of saltpeter for the Confederate Army.
Inside Tip: Save the descent for another day by booking a room at the mountaintop LeConte Lodge (www.leconte-lodge.com).
Great Smoky Mountain National Park Guide
Your National Park Photos
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Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska
Photograph by Ron Niebrugge, Alamy
Harding Icefield Trail
When to Go: July to September
Round-Trip: 8 miles
Level: Challenging Day Hike
Over the course of a steep, steady ascent—the trail gains nearly 1,000 feet a mile—you leave the world as you know it and enter the frigid realm of the Pleistocene epoch, or what’s left of it. You’ll skirt Exit Glacier along the way, and hear its cracking ice. But the Harding Icefield is the real payoff for your effort. It covers more than 700 square miles of the Kenai Mountains in the same glacial ice that blanketed much of south-central Alaska 23,000 years ago. Then, the vast, alien world of ice will take away what’s left of your breath.
Insider Tip: Watch for black bears and mountain goats along the way. Pack dry clothes for your all-downhill return.
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Yellowstone National Park, Idaho/Wyoming/Montana
Photograph by Rollie Rodriguez, Alamy
Bechler to Old Faithful
When to Go: Late August or September
One Way: 27 Miles, 4 Days
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip
A traverse of the remote southwest corner of Yellowstone unspools a highlight reel of the park’s wonders—the vast, wildflower-strewn Bechler Meadows, wildlife (moose and black bears), geysers, and a dazzling abundance of waterfalls. Above all else, of course, is a sense of immensity and remoteness. The four-day, three-night hike over rolling terrain traces the Bechler River through a spruce-forested canyon as it tumbles over Ouzel, Colonnade, and Iris Falls. After the Great Divide comes Lone Star Geyser (pictured, showtime every three hours), and more spouts are brewing in a geyser basin near Shoshone Lake, worth a two-mile side trip.
Insider Tip: Do this trip with a car shuttle. And don’t miss a soak in the hot spring known as Mr. Bubble—take the short side trail along Ferris Fork River at Three Rivers Junction.
Yellowstone National Park Guide
Your National Park Photos
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Isle Royale National Park, Michigan
Photograph by Tim Bieber, Getty Images
Greenstone Ridge Trail
When: May to September
One-Way Trip: 40 Miles, 4 Days
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip
This four-day, three-night hike traces the spine of the densely forested Lake Superior island that gives the least visited national park in the system its name. Whenever the trail breaks out of the woods—most impressively, atop 1,394-foot Mount Desor—you get a grand sense of remoteness while gazing down on the isle, dozens of surrounding barrier islands, and the sparkling lake. Even more thrilling is the chance for wildlife encounters—moose feeding in trailside swamps, loons in the many lakes, and the haunting howls of wolves at night.
Insider Tip: Hike from the southwest to the northeast. The Voyageur II ferry (www.isleroyaleboats.com) from Grand Portage, Minnesota, will drop you off at Windigo and pick you up at Rock Harbor, where there’s a small lodge (www.rockharborlodge.com).
America's Best Adventures: Wreck Dive Lake Superior
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Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota
Photograph by Robert E. Barber, Alamy
Highland and Centennial Trails
When to Go: May to October
Round-Trip: 7.3 Miles
Level: Moderate Day Hike
Wind Cave is better known for what’s found underground than what's above it—28,000 acres of great plains. This is why you’ll probably have this unsung hike, one of the best in the National Park System, to yourself. The trails traverse mixed-grass prairie with soul-stirring long-distance views before rising into a solitary ponderosa pine forest. Silhouetted against those vistas are likely to be elk, bison, pronghorn, or mule deer.
Insider Tip: Take the candlelight cave tour for a sense of the cavern as its early visitors experienced it.
Your National Park Photos
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Redwood National Park, California
Photograph by James P. Blair, National Geographic
Redwood Creek Trail
When to Go: June to September
Round-Trip: 16 Miles, 2 Days
Level: Moderate Backpacking Trip
See the Trail Map
The first few miles of this hike pass through lovely forests of ferns, dogwoods, and alders. But the payoff comes when you cross a small bridge into the Tall Trees Grove and stand amid the tallest of the tall, the biggest of the big, the Himalaya of trees. They’re as ancient as they are soaring. John Steinbeck called them “ambassadors from another time.” Camp on the Redwood Creek gravel bar upstream of Bond Creek.
Insider Tip: Hyperion, the tallest tree in the world at 379 feet, is in this watershed, but you won’t find a sign to point it out.
Your National Park Photos
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North Cascades National Park, Washington
Photograph by Drew Perine, MCT/Getty Images
Cascade Pass to Sahale Arm Trail
When to Go: July to September
Round-Trip: 12 Miles
Level: Challenging Day Hike
Cascade Pass Trail is the most direct route to the heady essence of the North Cascades—true alpine high country with craggy summits that look like multiplied Matterhorns. After six miles and nearly 4,000 feet of gain, you also come face-to-face with the foot of the Sahale Glacier and views of trophy peaks, such as Johannesburg, with its hanging glaciers, and even Rainier in the far distance on a clear day.
Insider Tip: Make it an overnight by camping at Sahale Glacier and bag 8,425-foot Sahale Peak by way of the glacier the next day. You’ll need an ice ax and crampons.
North Cascades National Park Guide
Your National Park Photos
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Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
Photograph by Aurora Photos/Alamy
Old Rag Loop
When to Go: April to October
Round-Trip: 8.8 Miles
Level: Moderate Peak Ascent
See the Trail Map
Bagging 3,291-foot Old Rag is a venerable Blue Ridge Mountains tradition for good reason: You get a sweeping view of the range, ridge after ridge, for 100 miles in every direction on a clear day. Plus it’s a worthy challenge, a 4WD hike that will employ all four limbs and then some. You’ll have to scramble up some steep, heart-quickening granite pitches over the course of gaining at least 2,200 feet.
Insider Tip: Spring is a wonderful time to bag Old Rag. It’s too early for snakes and bugs; streams and waterfalls go crazy; wildflowers pop; and blue-sky views abound, unhindered by leafed-out trees.
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